I feel as though I liked The Texican far more than I deserved to. Perhaps that’s a strange way to begin a film review, but it seems apt in this case, mainly because, all things considered, this Audie Murphy vehicle has a lot of noticeable flaws. First of all, there’s the score, which fits perfectly in a quirky late 1960s paella Western but which completely overwhelms this movie and feels gratuitously out of place. Then, there’s the dubbing of voices. And not just the Spanish actors, but also that of Broderick Crawford, whose voice was likely dubbed into Spanish and then back into English. Much like the film soundtrack, it seemed out of place.

What won me over, I confess, was seeing Murphy in a Western role that was far less squeaky-clean than many of the programmers he starred in throughout the 1950s. Not that he always played perfect heroes in the past. But in The Texican, it also seemed as if being physically out of Hollywood and no longer on a studio lot allowed Murphy to portray a world-weary gunfighter in a more convincing manner than he could have when he began his acting career. Sadly, Murphy would pass away five years later in a tragic plane crash in Virginia.

There’s also Broderick Crawford, whom I mentioned above, who is a superbly intimidating physical presence, even without his trademark growly voice. He portrays a heavy (pun semi-intended) by the name of Luke Starr who has the town of Rimrock under his thumb. That is until Jess Carlin (Murphy) begins to investigate the mysterious death of his brother Roy, a newspaperman who was a thorn in Starr’s side.

The plot, for a 1960s Western, is rather conventional, but sometimes it’s good to revisit traditional narratives. Not every movie has to deconstruct the Western mythos. From what I have ascertained online, The Texican is a reimagining of Lesley Selander’s 1948 film Panhandle, also co-written by John C. Champion, in which Rod Cameron took top billing. I haven’t seen that one, but it’s now on my list.

As far as The Texican goes, your cinematic life won’t be lacking if you never end up catching up with it But for simple escapist entertainment that checks all the boxes, you could do a lot worse.

10 Responses to “A Western Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE TEXICAN (1966).”

Regarding Rod Cameron: Panhandle is pretty good, as is Stampede and Short Grass. Both the latter, Stampede and Short Grass feature Johnny Mack Brown in support of Rod. They are both more than welcome, and all three from the same production outfit. Worth more than just a look.

Something about the voices. I was involved in the productions of The Christmas Kid in 1966. Jeffrey Hunter and Louis Hayward were the American stars and they did their own dubbing, and as a consequence were effective, but Louis said as the production wound down, that this might be a pretty good picture if they get the voices right. Sometimes they did, sometimes not. It was a problem.

The dubbing job they did for Crawford bothered me, too. It was obviously his voice — how could you mistake it? — but it always seemed to be a fraction of a second off, just enough to be annoying. Strangely enough I don’t recall a similar problem with Audie Murphy, and I tend to notice things like that.

Back in 2015, for those interested, I wrote a review of a 1967 Audie Murphy film directed by William Witney. It was his last film. I had this to write:

“Although he wasn’t nearly the screen presence as was Randolph Scott, war hero-turned-actor Audie Murphy, particularly in his later films, began to emerge as a more than capable actor to portray a flawed protagonist or an anti-hero. That’s certainly the case for 40 Guns to Apache Pass, Murphy’s final movie appearance.”

Just a side note but as a native Texan I’ve always considered the word ‘Texican’ as a slur. Technically it refers to people who lived in Texas before the war of independence and it denoted a sort of second-class citizenry both by the Mexican government (for not being true Mexicans or for being Mexicans who “defected”) and by the Americans (who also viewed them as “defectors.”) I don’t pretend to speak for all Texans but my family and those around us would get very upset at the word.

Having lived in CT most of my life, transplanted from Michigan, I’m a long way from Texas and what native Texans think of he word and that some consider it a slur.

I consider what you say to be true, but looking on Google, I see that the word is in common use, including a website for the Texican Natural Gas Company, with locations across the South, including one in Houston TX.

By the way, that piece you wrote about the LARAMIE TV series keeps getting comments all the time. The show seems to have been a favorite of a lot of people at the time, and a lot of them still remember it fondly.

I’m not trying to make a big issue of the word ‘Texican’. I’m only saying how a lot of us here feel about it. Also I see that the Texican Natural Gas Company you referenced is headquartered in the Carolinas so it’s possible they are unaware of its connotations, or if they are, don’t care. It probably falls into the category of Native Americans who object to sport teams whose nicknames they feel are inappropriate. In either event it’s nothing I can fight so I try to ignore it as much as I can, other than to ask people to consider not using the term if they don’t know better. Thanks.

As a fifth generation Texan with roots going back to the Austin colony and with a minor in Texas History I know of no instance of the word Texican ever being used as a slur. It was coined to refer to Mexican citizens living in The Texas territory both Anglo and Hispanic after the 1824 Mexican Revolution when Mexico won it’s independence from Spain (and where Austin and his colonists fought side by side with Santa Anna as allies).

It was used by Sam Houston and others to describe the Texas Army during the Texas Revolution and by Robert E. Lee, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott to describe the Texas Rangers who served in the Mexican War regardless of race, and Texas born Hispanics fought as Texans against Mexico in both The Revolution and Mexican War.

The term ceased to be used much somewhere around the Civil War, and was considered old fashioned and inaccurate by the classic Western era (roughly 1876 to 1890). It was always used though to describe both Anglo and Hispanic citizens of Texas and never for the Hispanic’s living in Texas alone who were mistreated and called much worse things than Texican. It was still used in Mexico to describe Texans well into the early 20th Century though.